Henry On Bassett Run-Out, Personal Development And Oxford

Town keeper Will Henry was pleased with his performance on Monday night and is now looking forward to sampling the electric atmosphere of a Derby Day encounter with Oxford United this weekend.

The talented youngster played the full 90 as a strong Swindon outfit defeated Royal Wootton Bassett Town FC 3-0 in a friendly on Monday evening.

Although he didn’t have to face too much danger, Henry commanded his box well throughout and made one good stop to make sure of a clean sheet.

Overall, it was a good night’s work for the 18-year-old who thought the game was a worthwhile exercise all round.

“I looked at it as any other game really. I prepared properly to make sure that I was on top of my game, which I felt I was,” he told swindontownfc.co.uk.

“It was obviously good to get a much-needed 90 minutes and I thought we had a good structure.

“We also had a few of the younger lads playing which was good to see.

“It doesn’t matter who we play against, I want to keep a clean sheet. I don’t like conceding goals and I thought we were defensively very solid.

“They (Bassett) had a couple of attacks but I thought we dealt with them well and overall it was a good solid performance from the team.

“It was also good for Jon (Obika) and Rapha (Raphael Rossi-Branco) to be back and to get some much needed minutes into them as they work back to full fitness.”

Henry is currently a couple of months into his first-full season as a professional footballer with the Town first-team after bursting onto the scene at the tail end of last term, and he feels his close relationship with Lawrence Vigouroux is really helping to aid his development.

“It has been great and I’m close with Lawrence – he’s a great keeper to look up to,” he added.

“It is good for my development to have someone with his experience, he’s played at Liverpool and Tottenham so to learn off him is a great thing for me.

“It has been a good start so far, I enjoyed pre-season, especially when we went out to Ireland.

“I’m enjoying being involved with the first-team.

“I’ve always felt that I’ve worked hard and I feel that hard work has got me to where I am today, so I’ve just got to keep doing that and make sure I’m ready because you never know there might be a time when Lawrence gets injured or sent-off and I’ll have to be ready to play.”

Finally, Henry knows full well the importance of this weekend’s Derby Day and is looking forward to his first taste of a Swindon Town v Oxford United showdown.

“All the boys are buzzing for it and it is one of the big games we were looking out for this season,” Henry continued.

“The most important thing is that we want to win and all the boys are relaxed, we’re sticking to our game plan and training has been the same – we’ve not changed anything just because it’s a derby.

“But everyone is looking forward to it and it will be a great experience.

“You might change a few tactics for the way different teams play because not everyone is the same, but we have a structure to the way we play and we’ll always stick to that.

“We’ll only change minor things depending on what team we’re playing, but the mind-set is always the same heading into each game.

“The atmosphere will be good for me because it will be the first time that I would have experienced it, but hopefully it will be a great experience and a great game.

“My mind-set going into the game will be to make sure that I’m ready to play, but I will definitely take in the atmosphere because it is something that not many people get to experience.”